Sextans is a faint, minor constellation on the celestial equator which was introduced in 1687 by Polish astronomer Johannes Hevelius. Its name is Latin for the astronomical sextant, an instrument that Hevelius made frequent use of in his observations.
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👉 Sextans in the context of PSR J0952–0607
PSR J0952−0607 is a massive millisecond pulsar in a binary system, located between 3,200–5,700 light-years (970–1,740 pc) from Earth in the constellation Sextans. As of 2022, it holds the record for being the most massive neutron star known, with a mass 2.35±0.17 times that of the Sun—potentially close to the Tolman–Oppenheimer–Volkoff mass upper limit for neutron stars. The pulsar rotates at a frequency of 707.31 Hz (a period of 1.4137 ms), making it the second-fastest-spinning pulsar known, and the fastest-spinning pulsar known within the Milky Way.
PSR J0952−0607 was discovered by the Low-Frequency Array (LOFAR) radio telescope during a search for pulsars in 2016. It is classified as a black widow pulsar, a type of pulsar harboring a closely-orbiting substellar-mass companion that is being ablated by the pulsar's intense high-energy solar winds and gamma-ray emissions. The pulsar's high-energy emissions have been detected in gamma-ray and X-ray wavelengths.
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Sextans in the context of NGC 3169
NGC 3169 is a spiral galaxy about 75 million light years away in the constellation Sextans. It has the morphological classification SA(s)a pec, which indicates this is a pure, unbarred spiral galaxy with tightly-wound arms and peculiar features. There is an asymmetrical spiral arm and an extended halo around the galaxy. It is a member of the NGC 3166 Group of galaxies, which is a member of the Leo II Groups, a series of galaxies and galaxy clusters strung out from the right edge of the Virgo Supercluster.
This is a LINER 2 galaxy that displays an extended emission of X-rays in the region of the nucleus. A hard X-ray source at the center most likely indicates an active galactic nucleus. The stellar population in the nucleus, and a ring at an angular radius of 6″, shows an age of only one billion years and is generally younger than the surrounding stellar population. This suggests that a burst of star formation took place in the nucleus roughly one billion years ago.